


All His Own Mischance

by emilyenrose



Category: The Lady of Shalott - Alfred Lord Tennyson
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arthurian mythology - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/pseuds/emilyenrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance had never expected to go to the kind of school which made you wear a blazer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All His Own Mischance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexElizabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexElizabeth/gifts).



Lance had never expected to go to the kind of school which made you wear a blazer. He’d only ended up there after his second permanent exclusion because he’d made himself unwelcome everywhere else. “You’ve made some bad choices, Lance,” his caseworker said tiredly. Lance looked at his trainers and said nothing.

It wasn’t all bad. There was Jen. Lance had never really thought before about what Jen did when she wasn’t hanging around Art and the rest of them, but it turned out she was here at the posh school, wearing a blazer and tie and hanging out with all her girl friends who Lance couldn’t tell apart. Jen went around in a little knot of posh girls despite the fact that she was, in Lance's opinion, nothing like them. Jen had long black curls and dark eyes and a smile that could light up a whole room. She was the kind of person who always caught your eye no matter where she was, but in that group she stood out even more. Her friends looked at Lance and giggled a lot. Art said Jen said it was because they fancied him, but Lance found that hard to believe.

He didn’t say that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because there was only one girl he could imagine wanting like that. Jen knew, had to know, and she was still with Art. If Art knew he hadn’t said anything. Lance was grateful for that. It would have hurt to lose him.

So that was the new school. Blazer and tie and Jen and her friends who chattered and stared at him and played with their smartphones a lot and talked to him probably because they felt sorry for him. Lance missed Art and the others so much sometimes it hurt.  It wasn’t the same only seeing them at weekends. Lance’s weekends weren’t even his own anymore. Everyone was supposed to do an Option for school, and one of the many stupid Options was Saturday afternoon community service, and Miss Singh had sat Lance down in his first week and let him know that as far as he was concerned it was not Optional.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” said Lance.

Miss Singh said, “Language,” and then just stared at him and refused to say anything else until Lance apologised. All the teachers at this school went in for psychological warfare like that. Lance had never had so much silent treatment in his life.

So, “Sorry,” Lance muttered, and then went on urgently, “But seriously, miss, you can’t do that. That’s _illegal_ or something. That’s the _weekend_. It’s not fair!”

“The Headmaster, your mother and I all feel that community service would be a useful experience for you, Lance,” said Miss Singh.

It was a small bedraggled-looking group that met at the school gate on that Saturday afternoon in November. Miss Singh was there, wrapped up in a big coat, and she chivvied them onto a minibus. One of Jen’s friends was part of the group, Lance couldn’t remember her name. She had long blonde hair which didn’t help to identify her at all because they all did. She smiled at him but it might have been an accident. Lance ignored her. The guy standing next to her gave him a dirty look; Lance couldn't remember his name, either. It was Tommy or Toby or something. He occasionally hung around Jen's crowd too, and he looked at Jen sometimes. 

The minibus took them to the edge of town, an ugly little spread of new housing developments. Lance slumped in the back seat with folded arms, and no one spoke to him. When they got there all the others peeled off purposefully in ones and twos, seeming to know where they were going. Even though this wasn't their usual sort of place they were all really confident, which was typical of the posh school kids. Jen’s friend definitely did wave goodbye to him, but Lance was embarrassed now about blanking her earlier so he pretended not to see.  “Come on, Lance, you’re with me,” said Miss Singh.

Lance fell glumly into step behind her. What a waste of a Saturday. Miss Singh walked with long strides. Lance wondered what would happen if he dawdled enough that she walked off without him. Would she buy it if he claimed he’d got lost?

Miss Singh chose that moment to pause and glance back at him with raised eyebrows.

Probably not.

Lance contemplated asking what they were doing, but he decided against it. It would be like admitting defeat.  Miss Singh possibly had psychic powers, though, because just like he’d said it aloud she said, “We go to visit some local elderly people every week, Lance. You and I are going to see a lady named Ellen Adams.”

“Oh,” said Lance, and decided to hate Ellen Adams.

They arrived eventually at an ugly bungalow on a side road. It looked exactly the same as the ones to the left and right. There was no doorbell. Miss Singh knocked and waited. Lance shoved his hands deep in his pockets—at least he didn’t have to wear the blazer on a Saturday, even Miss Singh wasn’t that cruel—and shuffled on the spot.

Miss Singh knocked again after a few minutes with no reply. Lance shifted his weight from foot to foot. Eventually the teacher called, “Ellen!” and then “Ellen!” again.

“Maybe she’s dead,” Lance offered. 

“ _Lance_ ,” said Miss Singh, and then looking slightly guilty she went round to the side and broke the lock on the garden gate.

“Cool, miss,” Lance said, following her round to the back door. “I’ve never been breaking and entering with a teacher before.”

“Be quiet, Lance.” Miss Singh knocked on the back door. “Ellen? Ellen, are you there?” There was no answer, but the door swung open a little at the knock. Miss Singh shook her head. “I keep telling her to lock it properly,” she said, but she went in. Lance followed glumly.

Inside the bungalow was weirdly empty. Lance was expecting it to be full of stuff, like old people’s houses always seemed to be on TV, but the kitchen they were in was literally just counters and cupboards, all very close together and all in the same shade of dull brown. There wasn’t a single sign of personality, not so much as a photograph or a tea cosy. The only thing out of place was a massive—like, truly massive, at least two weeks’ worth—pile of dirty dishes in the sink. “Is she crazy?” Lance asked.

“Lance, that’s inappropriate,” said Miss Singh, which Lance took to mean _completely off her rocker._ He hovered by the door, not really wanting to go any further in. “Shouldn’t you go and see if she’s dead?” he said, and then he heard the voices from the next room.

Miss Singh was looking at the pile of dishes sadly. “Why don’t you go and introduce yourself, Lance?” she said. “I’m going to deal with these.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, miss,” said Lance. “I don’t know what to say to old people.”

“Say hello,” said Miss Singh. “Ask her how she is. For heaven’s sake, Lance! Have a conversation, like you would with anyone. And close the door, you’re letting the heat out.”

Lance was completely useless at having conversations with pretty much anyone except Art and Jen. He went into the next room.

There was a big TV in there, with the volume up high. Lance thought the show might be one of the daytime soaps his mum watched sometimes. Ellen Adams was a tiny little old lady with snow-white hair. She was sitting in an armchair so huge and soft that it looked kind of like it was trying to eat her. Her eyes were fixed on the TV. She was knitting something. A scarf, Lance thought. He looked at the pile of finished knitting by her chair. A _long_ scarf. Maybe a scarf for giraffes.

Everything apart from her busily moving hands was completely still. She hardly even blinked. On the TV the people in the soap were having a badly acted argument about something they seemed to find hugely important. The contrast was weird.

“Uh,” he said. “Hey.”

Ellen Adams said nothing. Lance thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. This was stupid. He shouldn’t even be here.

He sat down on a stool and watched the TV for a bit. Ellen Adams either didn’t know he was there or didn’t care. This level of silent treatment made Miss Singh look like an amateur.

Completely mental, Lance concluded, and watched the TV until Miss Singh came and said it was time to leave. As Lance stood up to go Ellen Adams reached into the pile of wool by her chair with surprising speed for someone so frail and dragged out a length of red and black and white. It was an actual scarf, separate from the rest of the stuff. She held it out without taking her eyes off the TV.

“Is that for me, Ellen?” said Miss Singh gently, coming forward and trying to take it. Ellen Adams hung onto it, claw fingers in the wool. “I think it’s for you, Lance,” Miss Singh said.

Since there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, Lance came over and took it, keeping his fingers well away from hers. The scarf was mostly white. The red and black pattern was a row of little figures in triangle skirts all holding hands, with blank ovals for faces. “Er, thanks,” he said. He tore his eyes away from the triangle girl design. It was kind of creepy, actually. Not that he cared.

Ellen Adams said nothing. Her eyes had never left the TV. Her knitting needles clicked ungently in her hands.

It had got colder outside. After some hesitation, Lance put the scarf on as they walked back to where the minibus was parked. “It suits you!” said Miss Singh brightly. It was certainly warm. Lance looked down at the pattern of faceless little girls in triangle skirts against his leather jacket and felt an unpleasant itching at the back of his mind, like he’d forgotten something very important.

_

Riding by the riverside with his shield on his arm Sir Lancelot heard a distant singing, a voice fair and sweet as the rippling waters, ringing high and clear across river and fields. It rose and fell but never ceased as he journeyed onwards, and it seemed to Sir Lancelot that there was a great sadness in it also. When he came at length to a crossroads where an old peasant rested beside his cart he reined in his horse and addressed the man. “What maiden is that who sings?” he asked.

The old man gave him a strange look and muttered, “Good day, sir knight.”

“Good day, good day,” said Sir Lancelot, mindful of his courtesy. “Forgive me. But I must know, who is she? I have never heard a song so fair or so sorrowful. I am sworn to aid all damsels,” he hoisted his shield, “whosoever they be; if any true knight may deliver her from her sorrow, be sure I will go to her at once.”

The peasant looked at Lancelot’s shield and seemed to recognise it. Lancelot's deeds were known in Albion, and his arms—the lady who graced his shield—likewise.

 “It is a fairy lady sings, sir knight,” said the peasant, “so they say.”

“What is her grief?”

“She lives on the island of Shalott, yonder,” the peasant gestured to the river, “where there was once a great fairy hall. Ten years since her father the old lord gave a tournament, and all the knights of the realm were there.” The man paused. Sir Lancelot nodded, encouraging him to continue. “’Tis said she fell in love with one of the knights,” said the peasant, “a doughty fellow and comely, but he would none of her. He won the tourney and was injured thereby, and day and night she stayed with him and nursed him with her own hands – yet still he denied her. And when he was well he rose and left, with never a word of thanks, and did not come again; he does not even remember her, that knight, for he has won many tourneys. Now she is under a curse for his sake, and the hall is emptied, and she grieves for her fate all alone.”

“Might she be saved?”

“Of course—if the knight came back for her again.”

Sir Lancelot hesitated. An unease was upon him, and yet he asked, “What knight was it, then, that betrayed the lady so?”

“Why, sir knight,” said the old man, “they say it was Sir Lancelot.”

Sir Lancelot said nothing. The peasant looked upon him with cool and level eyes, not the eyes of a common man. He had not told the story as a peasant man would tell it. Ten years—ten years ago, Lancelot thought; he had been a young man and headstrong, half sick with love for the Queen, and there had been many quests and many tournaments. Had one been on an island in a river?

It took a long time for him to remember the name of Bernard of Astolat, and to match the image of the fairy lord in his splendour to the bedraggled old countryman sitting by his cart. Only the eyes were the same. Lancelot’s only memory of the girl Elaine was her cool white hands when she bandaged his hurts. He had meant her no ill. He had meant her nothing at all. All his thoughts had been of Guinevere, and still were, and always would be.

“I will have no truck with fairies,” Sir Lancelot said at last, “for they are a cruel and deceitful race.” He spurred his horse. The clear sweet voice still rang out across the river and the fields; he closed his ears to it. He could not love Elaine of Astolat. Therefore he would not go to her.

“Aye,” said Bernard of Astolat behind him as he rode away, “but no crueller than mortal men.”

Sir Lancelot rode bravely on to Camelot, where the Queen waited and her royal lord beside her; and on his shield the sign of the lady flashed out brightly, red and black on a white field, an oval face and triangle of skirt.

_

“Lance? Lance, mate?”

Lance shook himself. Art was looking concerned. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Been sleeping badly. Weird dreams. Give me that.” He reached out for the half-empty plastic bottle of cider.

Art handed it over and said, “Drink up, you look like you need it.” All of them were huddling against the cold. It was the wrong time of year to be drinking cider on the heath—the wrong time by a long way, Lance was probably going to freeze his balls off out here, but where else was there to go? Jen and Art had zipped their coats together so they could share the warmth. Lance tried not to look. He was jealous, he was always jealous. He drank and thought about the dreams.

“—Lance!” said Jen.

“What?” said Lance, and everyone laughed.

“Of course he only listens to Jen,” said Gareth. “Pass the booze.” He took it out of Lance’s hands.

“I was saying you’re doing okay at school now, right? Everyone likes him,” Jen told the rest. “Miss Singh _loves_ him. It’s so funny, she pretends so hard to be strict but she’s totally soft on you.”

“Oooh,” said one of the lads. “Is she fit?”

“She’s a _teacher_ ,” Jen yelped, and everyone laughed some more, and Lance looked down at his hands which were looking sort of blue and red around the knuckles. He pulled the scarf with the creepy little girl pattern a bit tighter around his neck.

“Where’d you get that?” Art asked quietly.

Lance shrugged. “Some old bird gave it to me.”

One of the things he liked about Art was that he knew when not to press. He didn’t ask anything else. Lance fingered the pattern, circle triangle circle triangle, blank little faces staring out at the cold dusk.

Would it have helped to go and see the singing girl? It hadn’t even felt like an option in the dream. Besides, what could you say to someone when you just didn’t care much about them—when you weren’t ever going to? What was there to say? ‘Sorry’?

Lance reached for the cider again and tried not to think about it any more. It was a week until he had to visit Ellen Adams again. He’d been to see her three times and so far she hadn’t said a single word to him.

_

“We’re receiving a distress signal, Captain.”

Captain Lott frowned out at the empty sweep of nothingness and stars and said, “Are you sure, Lieutenant?” There shouldn’t be anything sending signals in this quadrant of space; it was empty, quarantined, off-limits to all but the Fleet, and his was the only Fleet ship for several thousand light years. They wouldn’t be here either if it hadn’t been for an unexpected wormhole that had opened close to their ship as they hit the FTL stream and dumped them right in the middle of a forbidden zone. So far they hadn’t been able to find anything in the Fleet records to say why it was forbidden, which was worrying in itself. He needed that information, and Fleet security didn’t lock down data like that without a damn good reason.

 _Any luck breaking in?_ he subvocalised, and the screen on his left flashed red. Negative. The ship’s AI was stretching its own programmed-in rules to the limits trying to get into the locked information. _Keep at it, old girl,_ Lott told her, and the screen flashed a picture of a cat watching a laser dot. Funny. Other Fleet captains got ships which were obedient, helpful, and good conversationalists; he got the one with a weird sense of humour that communicated entirely in cat pictures. He’d heard the _Lady Gwen_ ’s voice maybe twice in the three years he’d been captaining her. He missed it.

She was a weird one. Her techs said she was traumatised by the death of her old captain, the man she had been built to complement. Pender had been one of the best, of course. Maybe the very best. Lott had served as his first officer. He had seen how Pender and _Lady Gwen_ had been nearly one personality split across two bodies, organic and synthetic, a perfect match. She’d talked a lot in those days. Lott had been jealous. He’d told himself it was ambition, that he wanted a ship, any ship. 

Now he had one—not just any ship, but _Lady Gwen_ herself, the one he’d dreamed of when he let himself dream honestly. She didn’t talk much. She didn’t trust Lott entirely, maybe never would.

He wouldn’t have traded her for the flagship of the whole damn Fleet.

“Set a course for the distress signal, then. Let’s check it out,” Lott said to the helmsman. “I’m going to get my head down.” He’d been awake since the wormhole first flashed out of nowhere, nineteen hours straight now.

“Yes, Captain,” said Lieutant Nguyen. Lott nodded to various officers as he made his way off the bridge. Out of the corner of his eye he saw _Lady Gwen_ flash up a picture of a kitten sleeping in a basket on one of the screens no one was using, and he swallowed a laugh.

He was shaken out of sleep not by any sound or movement but by a sudden silence; the quiet hum of a working ship suddenly flicking out of existence, the low lights he’d left on blacking out. “Gwen!” he said at once, sitting bolt upright in his bed in the dark. “ _Lady_ _Gwen_!”

The AI did not reply. Life support was on a different system, but everything else on board relied on her. If she was down—Lott was already blindly shoving his feet into his boots and running for the emergency access ladder to the bridge.  Everything was dark; only the soft luminescence of the emergency floor lighting kept it from being pitch black. He got to the bridge and found his officers panicking, Lieutenant Nguyen frantically tapping on his unresponsive screens, and the dark sweep of space outside suddenly not a lovely view but a very immediate threat. Lott said, “What happened?”

“There’s a planet, Captain,“ said the lieutenant. “Where the distress signal was coming from. We were heading towards it and then there was this.”

Suddenly the lights came back up and _Lady_ _Gwen’s_ face—the image of a face she hadn’t used since Pender died—appeared on every screen around the bridge simultaneously. Lott felt his heart turn over. “Code fourteen-alpha-nine,” gabbled _Lady_ _Gwen_ in a dozen simultaneous voices, “fourteen-alpha-nine; please leave quarantined zone immediately, please leave quarantined zone immediately; fourteen-alpha-nine, fourteen-alpha-nine.”

Lott whirled and looked for the nearest technician—a young woman in green uniform by the door. She gulped. “What is she saying?” said Lott.

“Fourteen alpha nine means a cyber attack, sir,” she said. “We’re in range of a weaponised AI—it must be on the planet.”

 _Lady_ _Gwen’s_ almost-forgotten face was still on all the screens, chanting _fourteen-alpha-nine, fourteen-alpha-nine_. “Gwen,” said Lott helplessly; this was nothing any of them could help her with. They couldn’t even try to take the ship away from the threat without the cooperation of its AI, and she was clearly fully occupied.

“Fourteen-alph—“ said _Lady_ _Gwen_ , and was cut off; every screen went white, and then on each one an abstract design appeared—a triangle with an oval above it, red and black.

“Is that supposed to be a person?” whispered Lieutenant Nguyen.

Lott blinked at the design, feeling a headache beginning. He’d seen it somewhere before, he knew he had.

“Please,” said a computerised voice over the speakers—the _Lady_ _Gwen’s_ voice, but not her intonation. “ _Please_.”

Then the row of red and black girl figures vanished and the AI’s face reappeared. “Good morning, Captain Lott,” she said.

“Gwen,” said Lott, relieved. “What was that? Are you all right?”

“I’ve locked her out of my system,” said the ship. “She can’t get back in.” _She_ , Lott noticed. “I believe her physical container is on the planet below. She appears to be of Fleet manufacture—perhaps a rogue intelligence, possibly the reason for the quarantine on this quadrant. I will let you know as soon as I access the relevant data. Would you like to investigate further?”

Lott licked his lips, thinking of the voice saying _please, please_. 

“No, that sounds like a bad idea to me,” he said. “Take us out of here, ship.”

“As you say, Captain Lott,” said the _Lady_ _Gwen_.

Pender, Lott knew, would probably have investigated. But what good would it do for Lott to go and look? Something in the back of his mind whispered that he couldn't even get a grip on his own half-crazed AI, couldn't even make her talk to him. The last thing he needed was another one.

_

“No!” said Lance out loud, waking himself up.

That had been a new one, the spaceship with Jen’s face on all the computer screens, but the same thing had happened as always. Lance had been having variations of the same dream every night for weeks now. He would always be on a journey from somewhere to somewhere—in a car or a train, riding a horse, on a boat one time. Jen was usually there, though she was never with Lance. The dreams could stretch to spaceships, but they couldn't stretch to that. 

That was how it started. And then he would hear someone asking for help, and he’d think about going to look. And then he didn’t. Dream Lance never, ever seemed to think going to look was a good idea. Lance was starting to feel like he was going crazy. It seemed obvious after going through it so many times that the dreams wanted him to _do_ something. But dream Lance never wanted to do anything.

The digital clock on his bedside table said it was 3:17 a.m. Lance closed his eyes, lay on his back, and tried to get back to sleep. Right on the edge of dropping off he thought, suddenly, of the triangle skirt girl, and then he thought, _Ellen bloody Adams_.

_

“So are you a witch or what?” said Lance loudly. “What are you doing to me?”

He almost immediately felt like an idiot. Ellen Adams clicked her knitting needles and did not reply. On the TV, a man with very shiny teeth was selling kitchen appliances. 

“I mean,” Lance said, and sat down. He’d brought the scarf, incriminating evidence, but now he was here it just felt and sounded silly. He ran it through his hands, triangles appearing and disappearing as the wool crumpled in his fingers. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I just don’t get it.”

Ellen Adams said nothing.

“I think you are a witch,” Lance said, “or something. Because it’s either that or I’m going crazy—except that sounds crazy anyway, and you—look, just tell me I’m being nuts, just say something, don’t _ignore_ me.” When she still said nothing he went on, “See, to me that proves that you do know what I’m talking about. Otherwise you’d be like, calling the police or something, delinquent teenager home invasion, you could say I’m high or, or mental. Or something. But you know I’m not. You’re doing this to me on purpose, the dreams. I don’t know what I’m supposed to _do_. I can’t make him do anything if he doesn’t want to.”

Nothing.

“I suppose you’re going to say he’s me so I can. But he’s not me. I’m not that much of a dickhead.” When Ellen said nothing, Lance protested, “I’m not! Besides...”

It took him a minute to work out how to say it. “Besides, I don’t see what he could do even if he did go to look. Like, the spaceship one—so it’s like an artificial intelligence on some planet, right, a computer come to life, what is he supposed to do about it? He obviously didn’t know anything about computers. He had to ask some girl what his own ship was talking about.” He got to his feet and started walking up and down, leaving slight indents in Ellen Adams’ thick beige carpet. “Or the one where he’s a knight and he’s in love with someone else—what good is it going to do her if he goes and sees her when he can’t help her? Wouldn’t that just make things worse? And the others...” the one where he was a soldier going away to war, 1940s uniform and a girl in a skirt on the platform; the one where he was at sea and he heard a voice singing to him from the water; the one where he was trekking across a desert with a portrait of Jen in his pocket, “it’s all the same, it’s not like he’s ever going to do any good, I can see you want me to make him try anyway but I don’t see the _point_.”

Ellen Adams reached sideways without looking away from the TV and picked up a new ball of yarn, dark blue like the blazers at Lance’s stupid posh school. “What’s the point?” Lance said again, and when she still didn’t say anything he made a meaningless angry noise and stormed across the room and turned off her TV. There was sudden silence as the man selling kitchen appliances was cut off mid-sentence. It was deafening.

Lance was standing directly in front of Ellen Adams now, and she was looking at him. Her eyes in her wrinkled old face were very blue. She’d stopped knitting, her claw hands stilled in midair. She looked at him and he looked at her.

“I never even asked you for the scarf,” Lance said finally, weakly. “I don’t want it.”

Ellen looked at him, and looked at him, and said nothing. Eventually Lance began to feel like a tosser. He turned on the TV again, and the old lady started to knit again. On his way out he left the scarf with the triangle girls pattern on one of the brown kitchen counters.

_

That night Lance dreamed of the spaceship again, and of the voice in the water, and of the wanderer in the desert and the soldier on the train and the knight riding by the river; dreamed half a hundred variations of the same thing, knowing he was dreaming, but every time he tried to wake himself up he just slipped into another version and the story began again. _Do something do something!_ Lance tried to shout at his dream self, but Dream Lance as always was oblivious, in a hurry to get to somewhere, thinking of Jen or Gwen or Ginevra or the Queen.

 _Please, please_ , said whoever it was asking for Lance’s help, on the spaceship again this time and using Jen’s voice to say it. Maybe it was because it was Jen's voice that Lance thought suddenly that if some arsehole ever did this to Jen, went past her over and over without ever once stopping to help, he personally would take the greatest pleasure in beating the bastard’s face in.

_

It was two weeks to the end of term and Lance hadn’t had a detention in nearly a month. Miss Singh kept grinning at him in the corridors when she saw him. Lance hadn’t tried to tell anyone at the school that the reason he didn’t get in trouble anymore was that he was too tired from spending all night having insane dreams to do anything much. He hadn’t changed. He knew he hadn’t.

He proved he hadn’t on a Thursday lunchtime, when the guy from community service who sneered at Lance a lot and whose name Lance still didn't know came over just to say, “Having fun with your bit of rough?”

All Jen’s blonde friends (Lance still couldn’t remember any of their names) gasped. “ _Excuse_ me, Toby,” said Jen icily. 

“Come on, it was just a joke,” said—Toby, apparently.

“I don’t think it was very funny,” said Jen, while Lance’s hands clenched into fists.

“Does your boyfriend know?” said Toby, looking Lance up and down. “I see you around with him—the bleached hair kid from the big academy, right? What’s the attraction, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“That’s completely inappropriate,” Jen said, and Toby opened his mouth to say something else, catching the eye of one of the blonde girls like he was trying to flirt with her, like he thought he was being charming. He even stepped in closer, right up in Jen’s space, clearly thinking he was going to charm her too, and he never got to say whatever he was going to say next because that was when Lance punched him so hard he fell down.

All the girls shrieked in horror. Toby scrambled to his feet again with his face bleeding a bit and his blazer all dirtied up. Lance shrugged his own blazer off, dropped it on the ground, and put his fists up. “Come on,” he said, “you say one more word to her, just one word, come _on.”_ He hadn’t been in a fight at all since he got to the posh school, not a real one. Toby gaped at him like he’d never heard of being hit, and Lance punched him again.

“ _Right_ ,” he snarled, and went for Lance while the girls shrieked and backed away and other people came over to watch. Lance hit him and hit him again, aiming to break his nose, aiming to ruin his fucking face, and felt like he knew what he was doing with himself for the first time in months .

_

He got a three-day exclusion. Miss Singh was there in the head’s office while the head droned about it. Her face went a little bit crumpled the whole time she was looking at him. Lance didn’t say much more than he had to. Yes, he knew his behaviour was unacceptable. Yeah, he supposed he was sorry. Yeah, he ought to think more about his choices. Yeah. Yeah.

He didn’t see what the point of all this was. He’d done what he’d done. And, he thought, thinking of that dickhead getting close to Jen, insulting Lance and Art in the same breath like he thought Lance would just _take_ that—he’d do it again.

Lance’s mum cried in the kitchen. Lance went to his room where he couldn’t actually see her doing it. He threw himself onto the bed and closed his eyes. His jaw still ached. He didn’t think he would fall asleep.

_

In the dream he was back at school, and his first thought was thank _god_ , because that meant it wasn’t one of the weird triangle girl dreams. Lance wandered through the corridors, but no one was around. He took the opportunity to go into some off the off-limits areas, the kitchens and the staffroom, but they weren’t all that exciting. It was the most boring dream he’d had in ages. It was great.

He went out to the playground bit round the back where he’d fought with Toby. No one was there. “I’m not sorry,” Lance told the empty playground. “I know I said to Miss Singh, but I’m not. He was being a shit. What was I supposed to do?” That was what they never understood, everyone who told him to think about his choices. In the moment there were never any choices. Lance always did the only thing he could do. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t a bad person. It was just that people like Miss Singh thought the world was so simple, and it _wasn’t_.

He glanced over at the bike racks and startled. There was someone there, a tall figure in long green robes, cool-eyed and regal. It was Jen—no, it was Jen and it wasn't; this figure was older, serious-looking, strangely dressed, with a golden crown set among the pile of her dark curls. Lance took a few hesitant steps towards her. He knew who she was, somehow; she was the one from the knight dreams, the Queen that Sir Lancelot loved. She was perfect. Lance couldn't think what to say. After a moment he knelt down. That seemed like the right thing to do. The Queen didn't react.

There was a sound behind him and he looked around to find Ellen Adams there, in her armchair, right in front of the school building, knitting needles in her hands. She was looking at him with her blue eyes, just looking and looking. “Go away!” said Lance, still on his knees. “What do you know? You have nothing to do with my life!”

Ellen Adams just kept looking. She looked sorry for him. There was a pile of her knitting by her feet. She reached into it with claw fingers, drew out the scarf with the pattern of triangle girls, and held it out to him. Lance scrambled to his feet—he wasn't kneeling for  _her_ —and folded his arms.

“Please,” said Ellen, the first words he’d ever heard her speak. Her voice in the dream wasn’t the way he’d imagined, not a cracked old lady voice. It was low and clear. “Please.”

“I can’t,” said Lance, a little wretchedly.

Ellen Adams looked even more sorry for him. She didn’t stop holding out the scarf. Lance stayed where he was, stuck, helpless, thinking of the Queen, and that was when he was woken up.

_

It was Jen who’d woken him. She’d come right into his room and shaken him awake. The digital clock said it was 18:38. Lance stared up at her standing over his bed and for a moment thought it was still a dream. “Jenny?” he murmured, before his brain could wake up enough to stop him.

Jen did not look happy with him. “Get up,” she said. “Get _up_.”

Lance had lain down still fully dressed—he still had his leather jacket on, even. That was good, he told himself; it would have been awkward if Jen had come in and he’d been in his boxers. He struggled into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing here?” Jen was still in her school uniform, but she’d taken her hair out of the ponytail she wore it in during the daytime. The black curls were loose over her shoulders. Lance wanted to touch them.

“Your mum let me in,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Sure,” said Lance at once. “What about?”

Her face twisted. “What were you _thinking_?”

“What?”

“Fighting! Getting excluded!” Jen said. “You were doing better, you were doing so _well_.”

“I didn’t know you cared,” said Lance, staring up at her.

“Of course I care,” said Jen. She squared her shoulders and went on, “so I want to know what made you think that was okay.”

Lance couldn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, “He was being a shit. He was, like, implying things about you and Art, he was—no one gets to talk like that about my friends.” He swallowed, met Jen’s eyes, couldn’t believe he was actually going to say it. She knew, she had to know, but he’d never said anything. “No one gets to talk like that to you, all right?”

Jen made an inarticulate noise and then said, “Lance, no. I don’t need you to defend me, I don’t need anyone to do that. I don’t _want_ anyone to do that.”

Lance said, “You know how I feel about you. How I’ve always felt about you, right from the start. I know you do.” Before she could say anything else he went on, “I know you’d never cheat on Art, I know, right? I know you’re in love. He’s my best mate. I just... no one gets to talk like that to you.”

Jen looked away, and then looked back at him, her expression darkening, and said, “Screw you.”

“What?”

“Screw _you_ ,” Jen repeated. “You don’t know anything about me. You—you were surprised to see me at school on your first day, you’ve known me since Art and I started going out and you didn’t even know where I go to school. You barely talk to me—I mean, you barely talk to anyone so I shouldn’t be surprised, but then you turn around and you claim to be in love with me. And you’re not, you’re _not_.”

That pulled Lance to his feet. “I am!” he protested. “You can’t tell me what I feel—”

“You’re _not_ in love with me. You've got some—imaginary version of me you made up in your head, that's all. You barely know me, and you say I’d never do this, I’d never do that—well, maybe I _would_ cheat on Art. I have before.” She glared at him. “You don’t actually give a shit about me. And then you make me into an excuse for this when really you just wanted a fight, and you act like I’m supposed to be flattered! Well _screw you_.”

Lance swallowed hard, stared at her, at the dark corkscrew curls, the bright angry eyes. She was perfect. He’d always known she was perfect. “You—you’d cheat on Art?” he said, hating the thought and at the same time thinking suddenly—thinking maybe—

“For _fuck’s sake,_ Lance!” said Jen.

Lance couldn’t say anything.

Jen said, “I used to wait for you to ask.” She folded her arms and looked away. “I would have—I would have, back then. I would even have dumped him, in the beginning, if you’d asked. But you never did anything. You never do anything. You just let the world happen to you and then act like it’s everyone else’s fault.”

Lance took a step towards her. Jen backed away, and opened her mouth to say something, and then just shook her head, holding up her hands to keep him back. Lance stopped obediently.

Jen left. The door closed softly behind her.

There was a moment in there, Lance knew, there must have been, somewhere, when he could have kissed her. He could have done that and it would have made a difference.

He took his jacket off and lay down on the bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling, going over the conversation in his head and trying to find it, his head aching with misery and the lingering bruises from the fight.

In his dream he was back in the school grounds again, with the Queen standing by the bike racks and Ellen Adams in front of him, still holding out the scarf. Lance pointedly turned his back on her and walked towards the Queen. She was splendid, she was perfect, she was looking straight through him with a face that looked like Jen's. 

"Please," said Ellen Adams' voice behind him.

Lance turned around. He looked at her and she looked at him. He thought of Jen and the sound of the door closing behind her. The Queen hadn't said a word to him. There still wasn't anything he could think of to say to her. He thought, savagely, _fuck everything then_.

“Please,” said Ellen Adams in her low clear voice. She held out the scarf.

Lance forced himself to step forward, slowly at first and then faster, until they were face to face. He reached out.

_

When he woke up the scarf was hanging on the back of his door.

“What the _fuck_ ,” said Lance, staring at it.

_

He wore it on Saturday when he went to meet Miss Singh and the rest of the community service people in front of the school. That guy Toby wasn't there—Lance hadn't thought he would be, he'd broken his face pretty thoroughly. Jen’s blonde friend looked at him sorrowfully. Lance still didn’t know her name. It would be really awkward to ask at this point.

It was entirely possible that he’d be turned away here—strictly speaking Options were school and Lance was excluded from school for most of next week. But Miss Singh said hello like everything was normal, and let him on the minibus. Everyone gave him a wide berth like always. Miss Singh left him to walk to Ellen Adams’ place alone. Lance was pretty used to doing the technically-breaking-in thing via the back door now. Ellen hadn’t answered a knock once since he started coming.

There was something different about the front room when Lance walked in, but he had been planning what he was going to say the whole way there so he didn’t stop to think what it was. “Fine, I’ll keep your stupid scarf,” he said, “if it means so much to you. If I end up actually insane from the dreams it’s your fault. You’re saying the same thing Jen did, aren’t you? You’re saying it’s my fault he doesn’t do anything, because I don’t do anything. Well, I don’t see what it’s got to do with you. You’re no one to me. You don’t even know me.”

“No,” said Ellen Adams in the same low, clear voice she’d had in the dream. “I don’t know you.”

Lance froze where he was. That was when he realised what was different. The TV had been switched off when he came in. There was a jagged crack across the screen. Ellen saw him looking.

“It’s broken,” she said.

“How did that happen?” said Lance. She—as far as he knew no one ever came to see her except him once a week and Miss Singh every now and then. Had it been broken for a whole week?

Ellen Adams murmured, “The curse is come upon me, possibly." She turned and looked right at Lance, still smiling. “Hello, Lance,” she said. Her eyes were sharp but kind. “How are you?”

Lance sank slowly down onto an overstuffed footstool and said, “Awful.” After a moment of staring at her, he went on, “How about you?”

“Lonely,” said Ellen Adams, and she raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” said Lance. He’d known that, he realised, known it for ages. And—“Me too.”

“Well, go on,” she said after a moment. "I assume you came to talk about your feelings to a wise old lady. Get on with it."

“Tell me about this first,” said Lance, taking a handful of the scarf. “I want to know what you were thinking. I mean. Why me?”

She didn’t try to deny it, or tell him he was crazy or imagining things. She just said, “I suppose simply because you happened to be passing through.”

“Am I really like that?” said Lance. “All of those guys in the dreams, were they really me?”

“You?" She laughed. "Captain Lott is a successful Fleet officer, he'd consider you a waste of space. And you're not fit to lick Sir Lancelot's noble boots. I could go on. Think of them as... reflections. Of something that happened, or will happen. Of a hundred lifetimes.”

“Your lifetimes?” said Lance, trying not to let the fact that she thought he was a loser sting. He was a loser. It wasn't a secret.

Ellen shook her head, brushing his question aside like it was nothing. “But you reached out,” she said instead. “I’ve never seen you do that before.” The way she said it was as if she had been watching Lance for years, or centuries; as if it had been an eternity. “Something's changed, I assume.”

“Yeah,” said Lance. “Yeah, it has.”

She said nothing, waiting.

Lance told her about Jen.

It took a while, but not as long as he thought it would. As he listened to himself talk he realised why; he had almost nothing to say about Jen herself. Instead he was talking about himself, over the last two years; about getting into trouble at school after school, and his mum crying, and the caseworker disappointed, everyone disappointed, and all the time Art and Jen off to the side being—being perfect. Ellen didn’t say anything, but she was clearly listening. “It was like—she was something I could hold onto,” Lance said at last. “A picture in my head.” He fingered the material of the scarf, the blank oval faces of the little girls. “I suppose it wasn’t really fair, making her into that for me. Making her,” he searched for a word and ended up using Jen’s, “making her my excuse.”

“It probably wasn’t fair of me to put you through all those reflections,” offered Ellen. “It’s very easy to be unfair to people we don’t know.”

“You could have, though—you could have said something to me, ever,” said Lance. “Instead of just like—here’s a magic scarf, here’s feeling like you’re going insane. I was here every week."

"Were you?"

Lance said, "I—" and then he said, "I just—Jen—"

He buried his face in his hands. Ellen let him just hide his eyes and breathe for a moment or two.

“So,” said Lance at last, when he was sure he could say it without his voice cracking, “so, I...I actually came to say something.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah,” said Lance. “Yeah, I came to say that I’ll—I’ll keep your stupid scarf. I’ll keep the dreams, the—reflections. Maybe I can make him change his mind, sometimes. Maybe I can make him at least _think_ about, like, his choices. Because he always thinks he hasn’t got a choice. But he does, doesn’t he? And then maybe that’ll help.”

“You don’t have to, Lance,” said Ellen. "It might not make much difference. Those patterns have been in place for a long, long time."

“Yeah, well, I’m going to try,” Lance said.

Ellen nodded.

There was quiet for a moment.

“And I could take your TV into the shop for you if you want,” Lance offered at last. “They could probably fix it.”

“No thank you,” said Ellen. “I’m glad it’s broken. I can’t tell you how much I hate the thing.”

“Then why do you watch it all the time?”

She sighed. “Because there’s nothing else here."

“Well,” said Lance with more confidence than he felt, “there’s going to be. You’re going to be my magic dreams consultant. Because I don’t really have any clue what I’m doing here, so I need a—whatever you are.”

The old lady’s smile was very nearly a smirk as she gently offered, “Witch.”

“Witch, right,” said Lance. “We’ll be a team.”

_

He nearly missed the minibus back to town. Miss Singh said, “Hurry up, Lance!” when she saw him coming.

“Sorry,” said Lance. “We were talking.”

Miss Singh’s eyes widened and she said, “You and Ellen? That’s really good, I’m glad to hear it.” Lance ducked through the door. The back seat where he normally sat was taken; the three guys who’d claimed it avoided his eyes. Lance had a thought then; he looked around for Jen’s friend, the blonde one. She was sitting by herself.

“Hey,” he said, sitting down next to her as Miss Singh started the minibus.

She looked shocked, but she said, “Um, hi?”

“This is really embarrassing,” said Lance, “but when Jen was introducing me to everyone I never actually caught any names. I’m bad at them, I guess.”

She stared at him for a moment and then she said, “Lena.”

“Hi, Lena. I’m Lance.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. But she grinned at him too. Lance fingered the wool of the scarf, thinking about reflections. Thinking about choices.

It was a start.


End file.
